Solve our crisis of confidence, biggest Infrastructure project since Ardnacrusha Dam!

TheInquisitor

The Danes have just announced they are going to build a tunnel to Germany that crosses 31 miles of sea. Total cost €4.75 bn.

The cost for Ireland to build a tunnel from lets say Bray(as its by the Motorway) to Wales would be roughly €15bn. 3 times the length.

As far as im concerned this is something thats going to happen eventually so why not do it now. When we're in the middle of a recession something like this will guarantee our country a great future.

1)Attract more business to Ireland as we now have a direct connection to Europe.

2)Attract more tourists who can now get on a train in Paris and off in Dublin

3)Make travel for everyone so much easier

We need as a country something massive to get us out of this negative mentality we've gotten ourselves into. Three years of talking about all the things going wrong. What are we going to do to make things right

Danes to build £4bn sea tunnel
to Germany
The project will be the biggest of its kind in Europe since the completion of the 31-mile Channel tunnel in 1994
Bojan Pancevski, Brussels
Published: 6 February 2011



High Speed Train in the Channel Tunnel (Nick Ray) The sea tunnel will be the biggest construction project since the Channel tunnel (Nick Ray)

Denmark gave the go-ahead last week to a £4.3 billion, 11-mile tunnel under the sea to Germany that will cut the journey time from Hamburg to Copenhagen by more than an hour.

The link will include two four-lane motorways and a high-speed rail line. It will use the “immersed tube” technique in which 89 giant prefabricated concrete tubes, each more than 650ft long and weighing 70,000 tons, will be constructed on land and then lowered onto the seabed.

Engineers chose the tunnel in preference to a bridge on the grounds that it will be safer and environmentally more sound. It is also expected to be slightly cheaper than a bridge. The Baltic crossing is served only by a ferry.

The project, which will connect Puttgarden on the German island of Fehmarn with Rodby on the island of Lolland in Denmark, will be the biggest of its kind in Europe since the completion of the 31-mile Channel tunnel in 1994.

Passengers travelling from Britain to Copenhagen via Germany by car or train will have their journey time reduced by more than an hour and Scandinavia will be integrated into Europe’s high-speed rail network for the first time. The coast-to-coast train journey through the tunnel will take seven minutes.

“The aim is to build and operate one of Europe’s safest and most modern tunnels for both trains and cars, which will bring northern Europe and Scandinavia even closer together,” said Leo Larsen, chief executive of Femern, the state-owned Danish company that designed the project.

More than 40,000 ships a year pass though the Fehmarn Belt, the strait between Lolland and Fehmarn. It is an important route for migratory birds that would have been disturbed by the suspension bridge originally proposed.

Work will begin in 2014 for a planned opening in 2020. The European Union is expected to contribute about £900m but most of the cost will be met by the Danish taxpayer and financed by tolls.

lmimmfn

general consensus is during a recession its the absolute best time to implement large labour projects( gives employment, increased spending, cheaper labour costs etc. )

But erm, we have no money lol

If we didnt have the bottomless pit that is the banking crisis and the IMF in, i honestly would be 100% for a similar prokect to link ireland with the uk.

later12

Irish people will never get behind big infrastructure capital programmes, whether they have any long term investment merit or not. They just won't support it.

hairy sailor

The tunnel the Dane's are building is 11 mile's long not 30,the shortest crossing from dublin to holyhead would be dublin port which would send it in a straight line east at a distance of 60 nautical miles which is about 65 normal mile's,(roughly).so you would be looking at a price tag of around 18 billion & thats without taking into account this is ireland so it would more than likely cost a hell of alot more even if the british met us half way,you also said you could get on a train in paris & get off in dublin,the train journey from holy head to london is about 5 hours,add in the time from london to paris + the time to cross the irish sea i'll think i'll rather get a hour & a half flight,sorry mate it'll never work plus we'd only end up making a balls of it

ei.sdraob

The Channel tunnel was build at cost of 12 billion euro (todays money) for a 50KM tunnel + few other things


Howth to Holyhead is about 90 KM at lets say 25 billion cost

Now how much did we handover to the banks? Anglo??

Holybejaysus

Well considering 60% of our exports go to the UK, this is certainly a feasible idea. But the tunnel/bridge would almost certainly need a high speed maglev train that would take you direct into the heart of London for it to be any challenge to Ryanair, not to mention a few lanes of traffic capable of all weather use.

As one poster pointed out, the govt would probably make a mess of it. Solution? Hire the Chinese to build it to our specifications. (Having studied and learned from any possible teething problems with the Channel Tunnel.) This was done last year on a major project in Europe and saved something like 70% of the estimated costs. :eek: This would also be a great way to develop trade relations with the soon to be future superpower of the World.

By my measure, the shortest point between the two is 95K-from Bray to Holyhead. But that is not necessarily the most economic route. There was also talk a few years ago of developing a ring road out into Dublin Bay-perhaps there could be an option of reclaiming a few miles of 'road' into the sea to cut down on costs?

Mister men

Great idea but will never happen as we think to small time in Ireland.

lmimmfn

we could block out the sun by building something really huge and charge the uk for sunlight..........hmmmm,except the world is spinning in the wrong direction

maninasia

hairy sailor wrote: »

The tunnel the Dane's are building is 11 mile's long not 30,the shortest crossing from dublin to holyhead would be dublin port which would send it in a straight line east at a distance of 60 nautical miles which is about 65 normal mile's,(roughly).so you would be looking at a price tag of around 18 billion & thats without taking into account this is ireland so it would more than likely cost a hell of alot more even if the british met us half way,you also said you could get on a train in paris & get off in dublin,the train journey from holy head to london is about 5 hours,add in the time from london to paris + the time to cross the irish sea i'll think i'll rather get a hour & a half flight,sorry mate it'll never work plus we'd only end up making a balls of it

60 million people acoss the water, Ireland's largest export market, Ireland's largest source of tourists, one of Europe's biggest economy's and the only major one speaking English...it'll never work - LOL.

Just think the amount of trucks alone that would take that tunnel, also the British and the EU would probably be convinced to invest something in it aswell. The Welsh would be all for it as they could benefit from closer integration with Ireland and more business locating and going through Wales. Then you could probably get a high speed train link spur coming from London...yes it it a feasible and worthwhile idea.

Using a Chinese company is a good idea. They would have access to capital to support the whole project and if capital and construction is linked they have an incentive to finish the project on time and on cost. We'd simply sign a deal with them, they could operate it for 50 years and toll all traffic. The Chinese would definitely like this project as they have huge pools of foreign currency and they need to invest that in something long-term and that could generate stable revenue. They are actively bidding for high speed rail projects in the US but an Irish sea tunnel would actually be much more economically viable!

hairy sailor

maninasia wrote: »

60 million people acoss the water, Ireland's largest export market, Ireland's largest source of tourists, one of Europe's biggest economy's and the only major one speaking English...it'll never work - LOL.

Just think the amount of trucks alone that would take that tunnel, also the British and the EU would probably be convinced to invest something in it aswell. The Welsh would be all for it as they could benefit from closer integration with Ireland and more business locating and going through Wales. Then you could probably get a high speed train link spur coming from London...yes it it a feasible and worthwhile idea.

Using a Chinese company is a good idea. They would have access to capital to support the whole project and if capital and construction is linked they have an incentive to finish the project on time and on cost. We'd simply sign a deal with them, they could operate it for 50 years and toll all traffic. The Chinese would definitely like this project as they have huge pools of foreign currency and they need to invest that in something long-term and that could generate stable revenue. They are actively bidding for high speed rail projects in the US but an Irish sea tunnel would actually be much more economically viable!

I used to work on the ferries to holyhead in the good times going back 7 years ago & we used to be only busy in the 3-4 months of the summer,the other months on some of the sailings we only had 6-10 car's,a busy crossing in the winter would have been 200 people out of a capasity of 800.i don't have figures for now but i can bet it's even less,a foot passenger can travel from the uk to ireland for about £20 & do it in 1 hour 50 min's & the fare for freight is getting alot cheaper,plus haulage companies like the fact the drivers can rest on the sailing as they have to by law,if it was a straight drive through a tunnel they'd have to stop somewhere in the uk & rest losing any time made up,the ferry services between the uk & ireland is pretty good at the moment with plenty of routes & competition,All im saying the last thing we need is a big hole in the irish sea swallowing ten's of billion's which we don't have & most likely never will.
Also you say 60 million in the uk,yes but they all don't live in north wales,people in scotland who want to drive to ireland can get a 40 min crossing from stranraer & there onto the motorway network from belfast also liverpool & pembroke-rosslare & cork-swansea,thats north,central & the south of ireland well covered not to mention the low fare airline's who won't take it sitting down.the irish sea on the welsh side is alot deeper than the irish side so it would be a major tunneling feat not like the 20 mile shallow english channel.You also mention getting a chinese company to build it,would that include a chinese workforce aswell?

RichardAnd

later10 wrote: »

Irish people will never get behind big infrastructure capital programmes, whether they have any long term investment merit or not. They just won't support it.

I agree. Spending money on something useful in this country will always be bogged down by Joe Public who wants it to be thrown at education and health in the misguided belief that more money being spent = better services. Also, we have the local issues that can be summed up by "them Dubs, dey get everthin!".

Ireland's biggest problem is her own people.

beeno67

Some very simplistic thinking from most posters here.

You cannot look at the cost of one project taking 20 miles and simply multiply by 3 to get the cost of a 60 mile project. First the longer the tunnel the greater the costs but also it depends on the drilling conditions. It would be hard to see this project, building the longest underwater tunnel ever in the world would come in anywhere less than 100 billion and probably a lot more.

What advantage is it going to bring? The channel tunnel has about 9.5 million passengers between 2 huge populations. If we got half that number it would be an amazing achievement. So say 5 million passengers. Half coming, half going so about 2.5 million passengers coming to the country. Many of these would be simply Irish people returning from holidays/visits abroad. Say 2 million visitors to this country, if the tunnel was a massive success. Again not all these would be new. Many would have come anyway on ferries and planes but lets be widely optimistic and say we get 2 million new visitors to this country every year. Lets again be wildly optimistic and say each will spend €1,000 per visit. Thats 2 billion a year. Lets ignore all the money lost to the economy by Irish people going the oposite direction and spending money there.
On these wildly optimistic figures we would not even pay half the interest on the money bowwowed, never mind make money on it. Business transport is never going to come close to making up the shortfall.

DAFT IDEA.

BeeDI

beeno67 wrote: »

Some very simplistic thinking from most posters here.

You cannot look at the cost of one project taking 20 miles and simply multiply by 3 to get the cost of a 60 mile project. First the longer the tunnel the greater the costs but also it depends on the drilling conditions. It would be hard to see this project, building the longest underwater tunnel ever in the world would come in anywhere less than 100 billion and probably a lot more.

What advantage is it going to bring? The channel tunnel has about 9.5 million passengers between 2 huge populations. If we got half that number it would be an amazing achievement. So say 5 million passengers. Half coming, half going so about 2.5 million passengers coming to the country. Many of these would be simply Irish people returning from holidays/visits abroad. Say 2 million visitors to this country, if the tunnel was a massive success. Again not all these would be new. Many would have come anyway on ferries and planes but lets be widely optimistic and say we get 2 million new visitors to this country every year. Lets again be wildly optimistic and say each will spend €1,000 per visit. Thats 2 billion a year. Lets ignore all the money lost to the economy by Irish people going the oposite direction and spending money there.
On these wildly optimistic figures we would not even pay half the interest on the money bowwowed, never mind make money on it. Business transport is never going to come close to making up the shortfall.

DAFT IDEA.

The one decent tunnell we ever built, we made cojones of it. Dublin port tummel.

Built it too low, and there were constant on ongoing problems with water leaking in after a bit of early morning drizzel:(
WTF, do you think would happen if we dug under the Irish sea? We would have leachate from Sellafield, backing up into the Liffey:eek:

Anyway, lets do a proper tunnel of we are going to one at all! One to Australia:P We would need only one lane as all the traffic is in one direction:cool:

jmayo

BeeDI wrote: »

The one decent tunnell we ever built, we made cojones of it. Dublin port tummel.

Built it too low, and there were constant on ongoing problems with water leaking in after a bit of early morning drizzel:(
WTF, do you think would happen if we dug under the Irish sea? We would have leachate from Sellafield, backing up into the Liffey:eek:

Anyway, lets do a proper tunnel of we are going to one at all! One to Australia:P We would need only one lane as all the traffic is in one direction:cool:

And why do I get the felling we would miss the Brits coming from the other direction and they would have to build a roundabout in the middle of it. :rolleyes:
Oh and aren't we using a different rail guage to the brits

Actually we are using the same gauge as some in Australia so maybe the tunnel to Oz has more chance.

The last time it appears we did a proper grand infrastructure project was the Ardnacrusha hydo electric plant.
Oh and weren't the Germans (Siemens) in charge of that ?

Our next big infrastructure project should be sorting out the countrys cities water supplies and that shouldn't mean the Dubs sucking the Shannon dry. :rolleyes:

HooterSnout

lmimmfn wrote: »

If we didnt have the bottomless pit that is the banking crisis and the IMF in, i honestly would be 100% for a similar prokect to link ireland with the uk.

Last time I checked Ireland was already linked to the UK :P The idea would only allow people to leave faster anyway, like rats off a sinking ship.

GSF

This is the digging a huge hole in the ground to rectify the huge whole in our finances theory.

Shouln't we do a cost benefit analysis first?

Maybe there might be better things to spend €25bn on?

Maybe the interest on borrowing €25bn would be greater than the profit such a tunnel might generate - in which case the taxpayers would have to fund that too!

Still at least we can appoint loads of politicans to the board of the hole in the ground company.

BeeDI

jmayo wrote: »

And why do I get the felling we would miss the Brits coming from the other direction and they would have to build a roundabout in the middle of it. :rolleyes:
Oh and aren't we using a different rail guage to the brits

Actually we are using the same gauge as some in Australia so maybe the tunnel to Oz has more chance.

The last time it appears we did a proper grand infrastructure project was the Ardnacrusha hydo electric plant.
Oh and weren't the Germans (Siemens) in charge of that ?

Our next big infrastructure project should be sorting out the countrys cities water supplies and that shouldn't mean the Dubs sucking the Shannon dry. :rolleyes:

No, no, nobody in the whole world builds roundabouts like us. We are world champions by far:rolleyes:
Have you driven the last five miles of road from Ennis to Galway, going into Galway ................... you get competely disoriented with all the roundies ............. there is one for everybody in the audience:cool:

Marcusm

jmayo wrote: »

Actually we are using the same gauge as some in Australia so maybe the tunnel to Oz has more chance. :rolleyes:

let's get it right, they are using the same gauge as us - it's referred to as "Irish gauge". And it's also used in Brazil. No there's something we'v given to the world.

HooterSnout

Marcusm wrote: »

And it's also used in Brazil. No there's something we'v given to the world.

The Brazilians are currently using it to build a wild west style train track through the Amazon forest for Spider monkeys.

the_syco

jmayo wrote: »

Oh and aren't we using a different rail guage to the brits

Yus, so as well as the undergorund part, new rail will have to be laid down for the section on Irish soil, and no IE trains will be used, due to that matter.

Have always found it odd that we have used a different gauge than our neighbours.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that the gauge used by the British Railway, and the gauge used by the Luas is the same, so maybe we could use the Luas tracks with the incoming british trains somehow?

HooterSnout

the_syco wrote: »

Actually, I'm pretty sure that the gauge used by the British Railway, and the gauge used by the Luas is the same, so maybe we could use the Luas tracks with the incoming british trains somehow?

Drunk lads will be hopping on the Luas in Dublin and getting off in London. "C'mere to me boi, where's the chippy, I'm fecking starving and me arse is killing me". :P

Proposition Joe 1

It looks like it's about 110km from dublin to wales which would come in as one of the longest, if not the longest road tunnel in the world? And with Irish labour costs still ranking fairly high the cost of this would be collosal!

Ireland as a whole accounts for less than 1% of the population of europe so i'm not so sure europe would give a sh****. This tunnel would surely benefit us but not the UK or the rest of europe. The only reason europe know who we are is because we spent all their money!

jmayo

BeeDI wrote: »

No, no, nobody in the whole world builds roundabouts like us. We are world champions by far:rolleyes:
Have you driven the last five miles of road from Ennis to Galway, going into Galway ................... you get competely disoriented with all the roundies ............. there is one for everybody in the audience:cool:

Sorry that should have been "we would have to build a roundabout".
As someone who lived in Galway I know it is full fo roundabouts. I reckon city planner had a bet on of how many he could get in.

Marcusm wrote: »

let's get it right, they are using the same gauge as us - it's referred to as "Irish gauge". And it's also used in Brazil. No there's something we'v given to the world.

Isn't it great our railway guage was adopted by Brazil bits of Australia and NZ who subsequently dropped it I believe.

the_syco wrote: »

Yus, so as well as the undergorund part, new rail will have to be laid down for the section on Irish soil, and no IE trains will be used, due to that matter.

Have always found it odd that we have used a different gauge than our neighbours.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that the gauge used by the British Railway, and the gauge used by the Luas is the same, so maybe we could use the Luas tracks with the incoming british trains somehow?

Ehh except the Luas is connected to nothing, correction the Luas lines are even connected to each other. :rolleyes:

That was first question some Scandavians had when they visited to view the Luas.

RichardAnd

Proposition Joe 1 wrote: »

It looks like it's about 110km from dublin to wales which would come in as one of the longest, if not the longest road tunnel in the world? And with Irish labour costs still ranking fairly high the cost of this would be collosal!

Ireland as a whole accounts for less than 1% of the population of europe so i'm not so sure europe would give a sh****. This tunnel would surely benefit us but not the UK or the rest of europe. The only reason europe know who we are is because we spent all their money!

I'm inclinded to agree. There is a tremdous misconception amoungst the rish that we are somehow important in the global scene of things when, in reality, we could disappear tomorrow and few would notice.

The sad twist in this tale is that Ireland, in recent months, gained world attention. How we must have looked with our drunken prime minister, our wild spending, inability to manage our finances and all the other little details that make Ireland a basket case nation. I suppose, to many, it might have confirmed our reputation as a gang of drunken paddies.

I recall my supervisor at work was in Brazil at the time the ECB/IMF came in. When he showed his passport to a brazillian girl in an Airport in Rio, he said she gave a giggle when she saw he was Irish.

mike65

Oddly the "Irish guage" 5' 3" is only used in three states of Australia - Victoria, southern New South Wales and South Australia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gauge_in_Australia

Cool Mo D

Maybe before build a massive, expensive tunnel to Britain, we should actually spend money bringing speeds on our rail network up to scratch, bringing top quality public transport to our cities, improving our secondary road network with widenings, bypasses and realignments, finishing the last few motorways, modernising our water, sewage and power networks, and bringing a consumer fibre broadband network to every town?

That would be a really good way to spend 100 billion.

GSF

Cool Mo D wrote: »

Maybe before build a massive, expensive tunnel to Britain, we should actually spend money bringing speeds on our rail network up to scratch, bringing top quality public transport to our cities, improving our secondary road network with widenings, bypasses and realignments, finishing the last few motorways, modernising our water, sewage and power networks, and bringing a consumer fibre broadband network to every town?

That would be a really good way to spend 100 billion.

But thats boring stuff. The Irish dont do boring stuff like water and sewage infrastructure improvements. We want big shiny things or big holes in the ground anyway. Something that can be seen from space.

HooterSnout

But if you look down from space you can't see the spire. Heck you can barely see Ireland with the clouds.

Irish Steve

OK, several points.

No way a road tunnel. for several reasons. The first and most expensive to deal with would be the pollution, getting rid of the fumes would be very expensive and cause all manner of problems.

Then there are the road safety issues. Trucks and cars in a long tunnel don't mix, for a lot of reasons, one of them being the ignorance of some truck drivers that think it's clever to spend many miles (or kilometers) trying to get their speed limited truck past another truck that's limited to fractionally less speed. Then there are mechanical failures, tyre blow outs, and other issues that mean that accidents and or crashes will happen, they are in the Dublin port Tunnel, and dealing with them in that very short length is problematic, and in an underwater tunnel of this length, even getting to incidents will be very hard with the length of the thing. There's a very good reason why the Channel Tunnel is rail only, and they've had fires that have partially closed it for long periods while repairs are carried out.

There are however other considerations that should not be ignored. The Irish Sea is one of the most expensive bits of water in the world to get goods across, a friend of mine told us several years ago that the cost of getting one 40Ft container from Holyhead to Dublin was over €1000. That's a very big on cost to add to the cost of the contents of the container.

A good, reliable rail link will become cheaper over time, when other factors become even bigger issues, and that is the whole aspect of carbon fuels. At the moment, the ferries are all oil powered, and while oil is still available, they will continue to be so. In time, between the cost of the oil, from whatever source, and the likely increased hikes in Carbon taxes, they will all combine to make both sea and air travel a lot more expensive than we've been used to in the last 20 years.

It's not accidental that Stena have sold off several of their fast ferries, replacing them with slower craft, and even on the few they've kept, they've reduced their use (On Holyhead to one crossing a day)and cut them to a slower speed than they used to operate at, as well as putting another traditional ferry on the route, the operating costs of the high speed services are massive.

If Aer Lingus was to become merged into Ryanair, do you seriously think that the fares in and out of Ireland would stay as low as they are now? I don't think so, and the other aspect of that is that in some cases, they are not "low" fares, I looked at a Ryanair to London at the end of February, and the one way was more than it used to be in the "bad old days" of Club Class Aer Lingus, and at least then you could take a reasonable suitcase, and change the flight at short notice to suit the requirement without paying another kings ransom for doing so.

Let's be a little more creative for a moment. Things like Air freight across the Atlantic will continue, but why not start thinking now about ways to then get that freight from Ireland to other places at an overall cost that will be considerably lower than using air. A good integrated rail freight service from the west coast, somewhere like the Shannon area, which could also be developed to become a deep sea port, and air hub, with reliable and effectively cheaper links to the rest of Europe would be worth looking at, if for no other reason than the same one as I've mentioned above, the increasingly crippling cost of using oil to move goods, where electricity, from wind, wave and nuclear will be the viable and less expensive alternative.

Before too long, it will be cheaper to send a ship to a port on the west coast of Ireland and use rail for the rest of the trip than it will be to send that same ship to somewhere like Rotterdam. In the same way, the days of the 40 Ft truck pounding long distances over the motorways of Europe will be over, for the same reason, it will be too expensive to use oil, and the power to run large trucks on electric is not going to be viable for a long time to come, whatever the validity of small delivery vans and cars being electric powered.

So, like it or not, we are going to have to face some very significant changes in the way the entire structure and way of life evolve and develop, and an increasing reliance on electric powered moving is inevitable.

On that basis, we could end up with more than one tunnel, or bridge, just to make sure that Ireland does not become an isolated island that really is on the edge of Europe, and to provide the capacity to be able to move all that's required to be moved.

Extreme? Maybe, but when I look at the way things are going, with oil now over €100 a barrel, and the reserves decreasing, something has to change, and better we do it before we're forced to, and in a way that is advantageous to all of us.

I'm not a "green" supporter, far from it, Carbon taxes on things like heating oil when there's no viable alternative available yet annoy me beyond words, but the reality before too much more time goes by is that we will either have to dramatically reduce our oil usage, or find ways of making viable alternatives, and so far, those alternatives are having detrimental effects on things like producing enough food for people and only "compete" with oil by being subsidised. That's not viable or sustainable.

I'm 60, so I may not see the real effects of the shortages of oil that will come in the future, but that's no excuse for me, or anyone else to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that future energy souces and supplies is not going to be an issue. Tidal and Nuclear power are going to have to be massively developed, as while wind can and will help, it's not reliable enough to be able to guarantee power, it can only ever be a way of providing top up and reserve power, unless a new technology for storing massive reserves of energy can be invented, as there's no viable way of storing significant quantities of long term power that's efficient enough to be used for the quantities that are going to be needed.

Enough.

Hopefully a few people, maybe even people in the right places, will start thinking a bit more positively about things that right now seem impossible. Tunnels and or bridges across the Irish Sea will come.

Not that long ago, I read a theoretical proposal for a Trans Atlantic tunnel from the UK to the Easy coast of the US, with travel times that we can only dream of right now, but that's real future dreaming.

Steve

maninasia

Cool Mo D wrote: »

Maybe before build a massive, expensive tunnel to Britain, we should actually spend money bringing speeds on our rail network up to scratch, bringing top quality public transport to our cities, improving our secondary road network with widenings, bypasses and realignments, finishing the last few motorways, modernising our water, sewage and power networks, and bringing a consumer fibre broadband network to every town?

That would be a really good way to spend 100 billion.

Or maybe we can blow 4X GDP on property and public service wages and social welfare costs. This tunnel could be largely financed by private investors. The EU, Britain and Ireland could cover the rest in using long-term bonds. The Chunnel was similarly derided but it's been a huge success.

We have a fairly good road network in Ireland, linking properly to mainland Europe and Britain would make a big difference to the economy. High speed rail is growing in popularity all the time and you could use it to move trucks from mainland Europe directly to Ireland. Because A,B,C is not done well is no reason not to do D.

I don't think the problem is feasible now though because no foreign contractor will trust our financial situation and government promises. If we had some savings as a nation and a stable economy it would at least have some chance. Now..no.

maninasia

Proposition Joe 1 wrote: »

It looks like it's about 110km from dublin to wales which would come in as one of the longest, if not the longest road tunnel in the world? And with Irish labour costs still ranking fairly high the cost of this would be collosal!

Ireland as a whole accounts for less than 1% of the population of europe so i'm not so sure europe would give a sh****. This tunnel would surely benefit us but not the UK or the rest of europe. The only reason europe know who we are is because we spent all their money!

Why are you using Irish labour costs? This would be an international project, they could use labour from anywhere in the world (Chinese contractors would be the best bet and it could be financed by the Chinese too) and large parts of it are not in Irish territory.
As it stands the ferries on the Irish Sea use mostly East Europeans, or so I heard.

maninasia

Proposition Joe 1 wrote: »

It looks like it's about 110km from dublin to wales which would come in as one of the longest, if not the longest road tunnel in the world? And with Irish labour costs still ranking fairly high the cost of this would be collosal!

Ireland as a whole accounts for less than 1% of the population of europe so i'm not so sure europe would give a sh****. This tunnel would surely benefit us but not the UK or the rest of europe. The only reason europe know who we are is because we spent all their money!

Ireland is a major export market for the UK. Having fast rail links to London and Europe would be an added incentive to invest and base European regional HQs in Ireland and bring costs down both for local consumers and for exporting goods.

maninasia

hairy sailor wrote: »

I used to work on the ferries to holyhead in the good times going back 7 years ago & we used to be only busy in the 3-4 months of the summer,the other months on some of the sailings we only had 6-10 car's,a busy crossing in the winter would have been 200 people out of a capasity of 800.i don't have figures for now but i can bet it's even less,a foot passenger can travel from the uk to ireland for about £20 & do it in 1 hour 50 min's & the fare for freight is getting alot cheaper,plus haulage companies like the fact the drivers can rest on the sailing as they have to by law,if it was a straight drive through a tunnel they'd have to stop somewhere in the uk & rest losing any time made up,the ferry services between the uk & ireland is pretty good at the moment with plenty of routes & competition,All im saying the last thing we need is a big hole in the irish sea swallowing ten's of billion's which we don't have & most likely never will.
Also you say 60 million in the uk,yes but they all don't live in north wales,people in scotland who want to drive to ireland can get a 40 min crossing from stranraer & there onto the motorway network from belfast also liverpool & pembroke-rosslare & cork-swansea,thats north,central & the south of ireland well covered not to mention the low fare airline's who won't take it sitting down.the irish sea on the welsh side is alot deeper than the irish side so it would be a major tunneling feat not like the 20 mile shallow english channel.You also mention getting a chinese company to build it,would that include a chinese workforce aswell?

Yeah it would include a Chinese workforce, why not? They'd get it done on time and on budget, what's wrong with that? Plus the idea is they would largely finance it.

maninasia

GSF wrote: »

This is the digging a huge hole in the ground to rectify the huge whole in our finances theory.

Shouln't we do a cost benefit analysis first?

Maybe there might be better things to spend €25bn on?

Maybe the interest on borrowing €25bn would be greater than the profit such a tunnel might generate - in which case the taxpayers would have to fund that too!

Still at least we can appoint loads of politicans to the board of the hole in the ground company.

It would not be digging a hole in the ground, rather it would be like laying a concrete pipe on the seabed in sections and joining it together. Again a lot of people don't understand many of these projects are funded by private investors...although we would have a problem now as they would be very wary of our financial situation.

maninasia

the_syco wrote: »

Yus, so as well as the undergorund part, new rail will have to be laid down for the section on Irish soil, and no IE trains will be used, due to that matter.

Have always found it odd that we have used a different gauge than our neighbours.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that the gauge used by the British Railway, and the gauge used by the Luas is the same, so maybe we could use the Luas tracks with the incoming british trains somehow?

It would use a high speed line so any link to a regular gauge track would not be viable anyway. The best bet would be to build a high speed line to Galway with spur to Shannon and develop the port there. That's one theory anyway.

Holybejaysus

As Irish Steve pointed out (an excellent contribution, btw-I wish more posts on boards were to this standard), a bridge would be the most likely option, for serviceability and safety alone. The Chunnel only takes rail freight for this reason, and you would have to think about the terrorism factor too. A HGV packed full of explosives in a 100 KM tunnel would potentially kill thousands.

It really was an excellent idea to have Shannon/Foynes as a dropping off/picking up point for trans-Atlantic shipping, where it would then continue it's journey by rail. Now I'm not sure if the weight limitations would allow heavy duty Maglev trains, but it is certainly something that should be looked into. The power should be provided by wave and wind technology-it shouldn't have to cost any fossil fuels whatsoever.

We really are going to have to start building a proper economy for ourselves-this could be a great way to start. But as a few users have already pointed out, the Irish politicians and planners don't tend to 'do' long term planning at the moment...hopefully FG will allow some fresh ideas to develop.

maninasia

Holybejaysus wrote: »

As Irish Steve pointed out (an excellent contribution, btw-I wish more posts on boards were to this standard), a bridge would be the most likely option, for serviceability and safety alone. The Chunnel only takes rail freight for this reason, and you would have to think about the terrorism factor too. A HGV packed full of explosives in a 100 KM tunnel would potentially kill thousands.

It really was an excellent idea to have Shannon/Foynes as a dropping off/picking up point for trans-Atlantic shipping, where it would then continue it's journey by rail. Now I'm not sure if the weight limitations would allow heavy duty Maglev trains, but it is certainly something that should be looked into. The power should be provided by wave and wind technology-it shouldn't have to cost any fossil fuels whatsoever.

We really are going to have to start building a proper economy for ourselves-this could be a great way to start. But as a few users have already pointed out, the Irish politicians and planners don't tend to 'do' long term planning at the moment...hopefully FG will allow some fresh ideas to develop.

Due to length of a tunnel it could be compartmentalised, I am sure there are effective strategies to deal with such a risk. I'm also sure a bridge would have it's own issues being exposed to the weather and waves and ship collisions, it may be a lot cheaper though.

Tragedy

Longest bridge over sea is 36km(it's over a silty bay in China). Longest bridge over water is 42.5km. Distance between Dublin and Holyhead is 96km - and the Irish Sea can be a ferocious beast at times.

hairy sailor

maninasia wrote: »

It would not be digging a hole in the ground, rather it would be like laying a concrete pipe on the seabed in sections and joining it together. Again a lot of people don't understand many of these projects are funded by private investors...although we would have a problem now as they would be very wary of our financial situation.[/QUOTE

so it's that simple,lay a concrete pipe on the sea bed & join it up,bet the brits & the french are kicking themselves for not thinking of that.so you'll have a tunnel with hills & valleys in it because the sea bed goes to about 180 meters in parts of the irish sea the gets shallower then deeper again,just look at a nautical chart i have it's my job.you say alot of people don't understand these project's i think your one of them,

hairy sailor

why would it be great to have shannon as a drop off point for trans-atlantic shipping.most of it comes from mainland european ports like rotterdam & southampton in the uk,ireland already has container terminals in dublin & cork which can handle it well,very little transatlantic shipping gets dropped off in ireland anyways,most of it's landed in europe first.A big box boat pay's port fee's like fee's for the berth,pilot,tug's,stevedore's which could set it back the gut's of 80k a day,so why would the average large boxboat that can carry 5000 containers,which about 95% at destined for mainland europe want to dock in the west of ireland,

hairy sailor

maninasia wrote: »

Due to length of a tunnel it could be compartmentalised, I am sure there are effective strategies to deal with such a risk. I'm also sure a bridge would have it's own issues being exposed to the weather and waves and ship collisions, it may be a lot cheaper though.

a bridge would also have the little issue of having to be over 300 meters tall at the deepest part of the sea from foundation to road level,piece of piss considering we couldnt even run the m50 bridge ourselves,i'd love to see the toll on this magnificent bridge into the blue yonder.they could always build a suspension bridge & run the cables from orbiting satelites

hairy sailor

maninasia wrote: »

Yeah it would include a Chinese workforce, why not? They'd get it done on time and on budget, what's wrong with that? Plus the idea is they would largely finance it.

i just thought by solving our crisis of confidence as the name of the thread suggests,we might hire one or two irish on this little nixer

maninasia

Here's another thread from Boards-
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056070940

Then another here
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=860179

Sesshoumaru

ei.sdraob wrote: »

The Channel tunnel was build at cost of 12 billion euro (todays money) for a 50KM tunnel + few other things


Howth to Holyhead is about 90 KM at lets say 25 billion cost

Now how much did we handover to the banks? Anglo??

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider#Cost

We could have built a few particle accelerators. With the change left over we maybe could have started a manned space program with a mission to mars... certainly a few robotic missions anyway

GSF

So if we borrow 25bn at the bailout rate of 6% this would need to turn a profit of €1.5bn a year just to service the interest cost. How likely is that?

How does it compare to the current profits of Aer Lingus, Ryanair and the ferries on the UK <> Ireland route? Of course that would assume the tunnel/ bridge would get 100% share from the other operators without having to engage in a price war.

The whole idea is economic madness worthy of FF and Anglo.

Sesshoumaru

GSF wrote: »

So if we borrow 25bn at the bailout rate of 6% this would need to turn a profit of €1.5bn a year just to service the interest cost. How likely is that?

How does it compare to the current profits of Aer Lingus, Ryanair and the ferries on the UK <> Ireland route? Of course that would assume the tunnel/ bridge would get 100% share from the other operators without having to engage in a price war.

The whole idea is economic madness worthy of FF and Anglo.

I'm not necessarily in favour of the tunnel. But you can't calculate the potential economic benefits like that. If you removed Dublin Airport would the cost to the economy only be the profits they were making in the airport?

enda1

London and Paris are very populous cities.

West Wales and East Ireland, not so much. How long would the train take anyway to London, something like 4 hours I'd imagine, then another 2.5 to Paris, so over 6 hours! Not really feasible nor viable.

Would be nice though I guess.

maninasia

First of all it wouldn't just be financed by the Irish government, in fact the minor part of finance could come from the state. (I know this is impossible now but that would be the normal situation if the project got the go-ahead...for an idea look at the Japanese and Chinese contractors bidding for California High Speed Rail project).

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-13/japan-offers-california-loan-to-help-pay-for-40-billion-high-speed-train.html


Secondly the tunnel is for freight AND for passengers.
Thirdly the stations would leave from city central areas so it is more convenient, they also have stations between Dublin and London where you could also stop.

GSF

Sesshoumaru wrote: »

I'm not necessarily in favour of the tunnel. But you can't calculate the potential economic benefits like that. If you removed Dublin Airport would the cost to the economy only be the profits they were making in the airport?

No but the tunnel would be a substitute for the ferries and air travel. Its difficult to see much incremental business being generated by the tunnel. Maybe a few additional people from North Wales who suffer from sea sickness might visit Dublin if they could travel under the sea?

If my main reason for locating a business in Dublin was that I was connected to North Wales, I could easily just open the business today in North Wales (probably at lower labour and services cost too).

maninasia

There's hardly any doubt that quick rail transport to UK and mainland Europe would encourage businesses in locating their European regional HQs here or manufacturing site here. Ireland's real market is UK, Europe and the world. It would bring costs down for local businesses and help them compete more equally with UK based businesses in terms of transport costs and delivery schedules. Most importantly though it would help create an economic hub between Ireland and the UK.
Saying it is a substitute is a bit like saying the railway was a substitute for the canal. Also mentioning North Wales is not very constructive to the whole economic argument but North Wales would benefit also.

beeno67

How about some figures maninasia. Even estimates about how this can be costed. People have to pay for this in the end, either via taxes of tolls. This sounds like one of the stupidest ideas I have ever seen on this site (and that is saying something) so can you back it up with some ecomomics. Have you any evidence to back up what you are saying or should the topic simply be moved to after hours?